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Credit: AFP/Getty Images

Lille, FRANCE: (FILES) Photo taken 03 October 2006 shows a client smoking a cigarette at the Tudor Inn bar, in Lille. France is to ban smoking in public places from next February but bars, restaurants and nightclubs will have a reprieve till January 2008, French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin said 08 October 2006. Nearly 79,500 people die in the 25-nation European Union (EU) each year as a result of passive smoking, according to a report published 21 March by health researchers. Around 72,000 people are killed annually by passive smoking at home and 7,000 in the workplace, it said. Around 85 percent of room smoke is so-called sidestream smoke, which is the smoke created between puffs. The researchers said this smoke is more toxic than the smoke inhaled and exhaled by a smoker. This is because a cigarette that is held in the hand or smouldering in an ashtray burns at a lower temperature, releasing a different combination of chemicals, some of which have larger toxic components. AFP PHOTO PHILIPPE HUGUEN (Photo credit should read PHILIPPE HUGUEN/AFP/Getty Images)